Tick-Tock Terror
by The Literary Lord
Summary: Jade is running out of time in more ways than one. Can she win the day before it's too late? Part of Project Dark Jade.


_Tick_

_Tock_

_Tick_

_Tock_

A odd giggle in the dark. A voice that lacked that certain quality that made it human, instead sounding tinny and distorted, mechanical and false. All around, a room full of shadows and half-lights, dim and twisted like perception in a dream with a thousand moving silhouettes and hinted shapes. Ever-present, the tick-tock-click of clockwork as it churned away to accompaniment of hissing steam and whirring cogs. She, he, it, sat in the middle of the metallic chaos. The chair was as much a binding as it was a throne and yet part of everything around it, its surface ever moving yet never stopping, great bands crisscross over it while heavy shackles held the figures slender and almost bone like arms and legs in place. Even then, they never stopped moving in their own way. Fingers twitched in perfect rhythm, muscles jerked in time to every hiss of steam.

A giggle, odd as ever in the dark.

_"Too much, but never enough. Heh...hehe...hehehehehe!"_

No eyes, or facial expression. Just a mask, with slits that glowed with deathly blue light. Long hair, dead and drained framed its head and seemed to waft too and fro. The glow from the eyes, was matched from the chestplate that hugged the curves of the figures chest from which sprang the rest of the forms bandage wrapped self, every inch covered in the white fabric that frayed at the edges. Female. But the distinction was pointless and far past relevant. What was not covered in wrappings was instead plated with armor.

_Tick_

_Tock_

_Tick_

_Tock_

_"So little, trickling away like little grains of sand. But there is always more, so much...enough...to drown in. Hehe. Tick tock, tick tock. Of your mortal time this clock keep count. How much time, till the clock does chime, and your precious time runs out? The answer? Not enough Time! Hehehe."_

A twitch, one out of time, and the tempo of the great clockwork shifted. The chair shifted, leaning back and stretching out to become more of a table then a chair, but one that still held its occupant tightly. Clicks and whirrs of another sort sounded, as from the darkness above spider-like arms of metal descended, tipped with long needles and wrapped in tubing. With inhuman precision, they stabbed, locating small hidden ports in the armor. The figure did not seem to notice or feel discomfort. Instead, the twitches and jerks seems to escalate, as if in anticipation. A glow, matching the blue in the mask and chestplate, flowed down and into the form through the needles. As it did, the movements seemed to grow more energetic yet focused.

_"Heh... perhaps a change of pace? After all, everyone needs to learn to change. I just need to...help it along. No...hehehehe...not it, I need to help her..."_

The infusion ceased, and the spider arms of metal retreated. The table returned to a chair, before a click released its previously held occupant to freedom. In turn, the figure glided, for that was the only term for the movement, from its seat to standing in a perfectly measured motion and strolled from the dimly light chamber to another. Each step was exactly the same as the last, a exact distance set to a tempo that equalled to the clockwork all around. When the figure stopped, the part of the floor stopped on rose up like a piston, a steady ascension at a neatly set rate. When the figure stopped, it stood surrounded by a collection of lenses much like you find in a set of glasses, only larger. Instead, they were a arm's length wide and just as tall, connected by similar spidery mechanisms as before that reached up into the darkness.

A idle wave of the hand.

Motion.

The room sprang to life, everything moving and shifting and rearranging as the lenses and the arms that held them jerked into movement. Quickly, one found its way in front of the figure. From above, more of the glow descended carried inside more tubing until it connected with the lens, the surface of which shifted. Colors and images played inside it, until settling on the image of a black-haired girl in a orange hoodie, chatting in silence in a schoolyard.

_"So much time...but never enough...hehehe."_

**_Jade is in trouble, can she do battle against this new enemy, as well as her own inner darkness?_**

* * *

**This is an adoption of Nocturne's prompt on the Project Dark Jade forum, and thus NOT PLAIGARISM.**

**In case you didn't already know, this story is part of Project Dark Jade, a fanfiction project founded by Eduard Kassel and Nocturne no Kitsune (the latter of which has since dropped off the radar), meant to "address a depressing vacuum in the Jackie Chan Adventures Archives. Namely stories in which the shows leading little lady either strays or is press ganged unto the dark side.". Eduard's "Queen of All Oni" story is likely the most popular JCA story _ever_, BTW. The Project also has a TV Tropes page and a forum if you want to check out some of the other stories.**

**Also, please note that I am often busy IRL and updates may be sporadic. I apologize in advance for this, so please no flames about it! Thank you.**


End file.
